


The Gift of Time

by vysila



Category: Man From U.N.C.L.E.
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-29
Updated: 2012-09-29
Packaged: 2017-11-15 07:30:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/524726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vysila/pseuds/vysila
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Does love come with an expiration date?</i><br/>Written December 2008 for muncle's Down the Chimney Affair story exchange on livejournal.<br/>(This was a last-minute pinch hit story and I'm sorry to say that I did not hit any of the recipient's prompts:  cooking, swimming pool, truth drug. My apologies to frau_flora.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Gift of Time

My hearing is as good as ever, even if other things haven't kept pace. My knee, for instance. Damned treacherous cobblestones. They're hell on an old man with a cane.

As a result, drumming my fingers on the chair arm was about as strenuous an activity as I'd managed for an eternity. That, and watching the sky lighten into the murkiness that passed for December daylight in this forsaken corner of the globe. My watch proclaimed I'd only been waiting twelve hours, but the acid burn in my gut insisted the watch lied.

So when I heard a slow, heavy trudge on the staircase, my heart tried to exit my chest by way of my throat and my left hand was reduced to white-knuckle status around the armrest's curving walnut handhold. My right hand held my trusty old U.N.C.L.E. Special rock steady and aimed straight at the door.

But before I heard the familiar knock on the door, I'd identified Illya by the cadence of that uneven shuffle. Suddenly, I could breathe again.

He was puffing slightly from the climb, but that didn't stop him from complaining as soon as he'd bolted the door. "Tell me again why we're in an attic?"

"Luxury retirement penthouse, remember?" With a panoramic view of the market on one side and the town square on the other, plus a convenient rooftop escape route out the back.

What can I say? Old habits die hard.

If Illya felt my greedy, assessing stare, he certainly ignored it in favor of sarcasm. "Ah, yes, one of the rewards of saving the world multiple times." His gesture encompassed the one-room apartment and its shabby furnishings.

I tucked my Walther back into its holster and then, using the cane for leverage, wrangled myself out of the chair and into a precarious one-legged stand. Inactivity has never been one of my strengths. 

He spared me a sideways glance, eyes sparkling with mischief, as he hung up his hat and coat. They were soaked through, legacy of the miserable weather. His boots were suspiciously muddy. 

"Perfecting your flamingo disguise?" Amusement curled his lip.

The tension that had been holding me captive released at his playful words, sharply, the way a knife to the ribs lets air hiss out of the lungs. But I merely shot him my best affronted glare and hobbled over to the table, a grand distance of three steps, without disgracing myself. "You're no, ah, spring chicken yourself, tovarisch."

He stared pointedly at my hair, with its distinguished streaks of salt amongst the pepper. "At least I didn't go in for gaudy plumage."

I figured out a long time ago that a single insult from him is better therapy than hours on some analyst's couch, so I just smirked and nodded my chin toward his currently mousy brown-gray mop, still inappropriately long. "Unlike someone else I could name, I have aged with grace and style."

"Could've fooled me." His eyes said something entirely different, though, and when I leaned in to kiss him, I had no fear of falling. As always, Illya's strength was there for me to use. I laid my lips against the generous curves of his mouth, and let the hot press of lips and tongue melt the ice dam that had frosted my insides. This close, I smelled smoke and gunpowder, clinging to him like unwanted but persistent suitors.

I was shaky when the kiss ended, as if I'd been breathing pure oxygen. 

"Now, sit down before you fall over, my friend." Illya steadied me as I groped for the chair behind me. "How is your knee today?"

I sat again and he knelt before me, as graceful as the gymnast he'd once been. Hands that had frequently served as lethal weapons were now gentle as he probed my injury. Hands with knuckles skinned raw, I noted, and tried to ignore the elevator-plummet sensation in my stomach.

"You would know if you hadn't been out all night."

He looked up, raised that expressive left eyebrow and his high forehead crinkled like intricate origami. A little smile teased around the corners of his mouth. "Jealous?"

"You wish." 

"Do I?" That annoying smile deepened. "But how else am I to observe nocturnal birds?" 

I frowned but didn't dispute his logic. There are occasional disadvantages to those panoramic penthouse views. Like when you spot a familiar face, and one of you is laid up with a bad leg.

Like I said, old habits.

He returned his attention to my leg, that familiar vertical crease between his brows now deep as a canyon. "The wrapping has helped, it appears. Only a bad sprain. You should be fine in a week or two."

"Well, aren't you just a little ray of sunshine?" I looked down at the dull brown head bent over my leg and let myself remember hair the color of sunshine, hair that had all too often been a source of concern during night work.

Suddenly it was hard to breathe around the ache in my chest. "Some people, ah, call when they know they're going to be late." I aimed for a tone of supervisory censure, but judging by the wry twist of his lips, I'd merely achieved distraught spouse.

Which, come to think of it, isn't too far off the mark.

He reached in his pocket and showed me a fistful of metallic fragments, ephemeral as faerie dust, before wiping his hands clean. "I couldn't." His wide eyes, bluer than they had any right to be, said everything his words didn't.

Then he sneezed, grinned and shook a warning finger at me. "And do not take your frustrations out on me. You can't blame me for your own clumsiness." 

The hell of it was - I couldn't. So instead I tsked unsympathetically and handed him the quilt I'd been using, still warm from my body heat. "Old fellow like you should take better care of himself."

He squeezed my hand briefly during the exchange of fabric, and I took the opportunity to caress those sore-looking knuckles, but when he wrapped the quilt around his shoulders, he glared up at me, a witheringly familiar expression. "Look who's talking. Can you walk?"

Fossils could probably move faster than I could right now. But. . . "If I have to." I looked him straight in the eye, searching for a clue to his intent. "Do I have to?"

He rocked back on his heels and patted my knee. "Well, I'm certainly not going to carry you down four flights of stairs."

I didn't point out that he hadn't helped me _up_ those four flights of stairs, either. Stefan, the large and genial first-floor tenant, had performed the honors yesterday afternoon after my cruel encounter with those untrustworthy cobblestones.

"Today?" That option didn't appeal to me very much, but my preferences didn't necessarily enter into the matter. They certainly hadn't last night.

"Possibly."

I sighed and considered the stairs I would regrettably have to navigate on my own. Suddenly I missed our old life in New York, with all its luxuries, fiercely. No, I wouldn't allow myself to think of New York. That wasn't my reality right now. Or Illya's. Living in the here and now was a lesson neither one of us had ever forgotten.

"You're thinking of elevators, aren't you?" That mischievous, smug grin made a quick appearance and vanished when he sneezed again. He rose to his feet and swayed slightly, grimacing and pressing one hand to the small of his back. "I guess it's true what my grandmother used to say. Aging ain't for sissies."

"Your grandmother said _that_?" I laughed but eyed him speculatively, wondering how much of the grimace was for effect and how much for real.

His stomach complained then, a familiar, comforting sound. Some things would never change, thank goodness. "Well, I may have paraphrased a bit." He lit the gas ring and put the kettle on to boil. His movements after that one fumble were as smooth, economical and efficient as ever.

"A _bit_?" I shifted position, all the better to keep an eye on him, and my knee protested sharply. "Did your grandmother ever say whether it got easier with experience?"

"Unfortunately, no." His sideways glance said better than words that he knew I was observing him closely now. Not that watching his body has ever been a problem for me. Regardless of the state of decrepitude of said body.

"Well, you know, she had a point. Old bones, damp weather and all that nocturnal bird-watching could prove hazardous to your health."

"Apparently it is safer than walking across the town square," he shot back, sounding awfully smug.

"That remains to be seen."

"I am fine." He acknowledged the warning, and I knew that was his last word on the subject.

He plopped a canvas bag on the table and began unloading the contents. The sour scent of the still-warm rye bread was an improvement over the room's naturally musty odor.

"Ah, you've been foraging. What'd you do, walk all the way to Budapest to do the marketing?" 

He rolled his eyes at me, heaved his patented long-suffering sigh, and laid out a portion of the local spicy kolbász and a large wedge of pale cheese. "I knew I should have left you lying in the gutter last night."

"But you didn't." I smiled as if I hadn't a care in the world, ignoring his glare and its companion grumble, and hefted a bottle of Egri Bikaver, the hearty red wine that is Hungary's unofficial national drink. "Are we celebrating?"

His dismissive shrug couldn't disguise the cat-that-ate-the-canary smirk lifting one corner of his mouth. "We are. . . marking an occasion."

"Christmas?" I hazarded, although he tends to ignore holidays unless forced by someone - namely, me - to take official notice.

He smiled. "If you like."

He sat down in the other chair and scooted it close to mine. "So." I cleared my throat. "How was your excursion? See anything interesting?"

The grin Illya flashed at me was downright conspiratorial. "Well," he pulled his trusty penknife from his pocket and began slicing the kolbász into bite-sized pieces. I really didn't want to think about why he wasn't using the larger and much sharper knife that had been strapped to his right calf.

"Let's see. The price of potatoes is completely outrageous, the weather is seasonably unpleasant and the local black market has books for sale, a new spy novel included. You might enjoy it. Or you would, if you read Hungarian."

I sighed and considered the consequences of darting my most aggravating partner. "So. . . that's it? You're gone for hours, nearly catch pneumonia, and that's all you have to tell me?"

He cocked his head to one side and even though he tried an innocent expression on for size, I couldn't help but think of the RCA dog. A rather shaggy and exotic version, though. Not that he was exactly listening to 'his master's voice' by any stretch of the imagination. "They do say memory is the first thing to go."

I was seized by a nearly irresistible impulse to strangle him. Any court would doubtlessly rule justifiable homicide.

Instead, I used my good leg to kick him hard in the nearest ankle. He probably didn't even notice, thanks to the hiking boots he still wore, but it made me feel better. "Your memory is as short as the rest of you. What about the nocturnal bird-watching?"

"Oh. That." He shrugged. "I did find what appeared to be a nest."

As a dramatic revelation, this one left quite a lot to be desired. I affected disinterest. "Flocking, ah, permanently?"

"I don't think there's any danger of that. Not now, at least."

This same deliberately obtuse technique had proved surprisingly effective - maddening, even - in interrogations, regardless of which end of the interrogation he was on. I grabbed my own pocketknife and snapped the blade open with a quick gesture. "Oh? Did something scare them off?"

He chewed on his lower lip and adopted a thoughtful expression. Really and truly, I think Illya missed his calling in life. He's certainly theatrical enough when the impulse takes him. "Not exactly. I believe a predator may have eradicated the nest."

I concentrated on dividing the cheese into nicely symmetrical slices. "The world can be a cruel place."

Illya turned his head to look at me so abruptly that I feared whiplash, and wondered if my voice had sounded as unnaturally calm to his ears as it had to mine.

"Napoleon?"

The teakettle was steaming, so I tottered over to prepare tea. Coffee was too rare a commodity for even the local black market. "Andor stopped by about an hour ago," I said carefully. "He, ah, keeps addressing me as 'grandfather'."

Illya had on his wary expression, the one he reserves for large dogs and rattlesnakes. And, apparently, me, when he's unsure of my mood. "It's a sign of respect for an elder," he murmured. "Stefan's children are most polite."

"Makes me feel old," I complained deliberately, just to provoke Illya's wry amusement. I didn't want to be the cause of wariness. Not from Illya. "He talks slowly and loudly, and gives me these pitying looks." 

"If you spoke better Hungarian you wouldn't have to pretend to be hard of hearing."

"Too many consonants." I dismissed my lack of language skills with an airy wave of my hand and turned back to contemplate the steeping tea. "Andor was as excited as a ten-year-old can be. I didn't catch all the details, but the gist of it was that there was an explosion out by the lake last night."

My hands clenched tight, nails digging in hard, until my palms were wet from eight tiny gashes. Remembering. I'd thought him lost before, but somehow, this time, it seemed like there was so much more to lose.

I felt his arms around me almost before I heard the clatter of his chair and turned gratefully into his embrace. My smart Russian didn't waste any time with explanations or apologies. His mouth found mine with all the accuracy and power of a heat-seeking missile, a collision of teeth and tongue and breathless, greedy reassurances.

"I'm here, I'm here," he whispered over and over, between demanding, claiming kisses.

"It's these disguises," he said when we finally eased apart, and stepped over to the bureau and its mirror. Finding his own comfort in assigning blame. Identify and quantify, that was how he reduced horror down to something manageable. "It's unnerving to be someone else for too long."

He ran a hand through his hair and stuck his tongue out at his reflection, a childish, defiant gesture intended to make me laugh.

It didn't. I looked at him, at the dull hair and wrinkles and stooped posture but still unmistakably Illya, and something resembling understanding unraveled in my chest. "No, it's us," I whispered, but I don't think he heard me.

He sighed. "We're done here, so good riddance." But when he reached up to peel off his hairpiece, I grabbed his wrist. 

"Leave it." I hardly recognized my own voice for the second time in a few minutes.

His gaze intersected with mine in the mirror. I read equal parts confusion and annoyance in his eyes. "What if I don't want to?" Despite the truculent tone of voice, he dropped his hands, the hairpiece still firmly in place.

"Just. . . leave it," I repeated, helpless to explain the commotion in my chest, the sting in my eyes that had no right to exist, willing my oh-so-rational partner to accept my lead as he's done so many other times. "And come to bed. You've got to be tired after the night you had."

He shook his head. "Crazy American," he muttered, but I didn't mistake the affection in his voice, and when I sat down on the bed and patted the mattress, he sat down beside me.

I lay back and tugged him with me, careless of muddy boots, our bodies fitting together with a familiarity born of practice. The urge to soothe confusion away from his wrinkled brow was irresistible. I reached out with one spotted, trembling hand and touched, not just Illya, but fantasy. A subset of reality created out of the intricate pattern of folds and twists of latex, lending substance to illusion.

Christ, I wanted this. Needed it. In a life of uncertainties, I sought assurance that what we shared would survive beyond our brutal present.

Tempting fate? Perhaps, but wasn't that what we did every day anyway?

Illya took my other hand in his, locked our fingers together and eased himself deeper into my embrace. Following my lead, just like always.

"Ever think we'd make it this far?" I said, deliberately putting it in the past tense, shaping the future through force of will alone. 

Illya shifted and then stilled beside me. A moment's despair swamped me, recognizing the difference between his accommodating my fantasy and actually participating in it. 

Until he levered up on one elbow and turned his steady, confident gaze straight on me. "Yes," he said, as fiercely as the predator he claims to be, as protective and possessive as only a predator can be with one of its own kind. "I have always believed in us."

Every defense I owned came crashing down around me, shattered by a simple truth that I'd never guessed. He wanted this as much as I did.

"Napoleon." He took my face between cold-roughened palms and kissed me, as tenderly and lovingly as I've ever been kissed in my entire life, and even though our breath condensed in the chill air, I don't think I'd ever felt as warm as I did right then.

I opened to that lingering touch of lips and tongue, grounded to both the fantasy and reality of Illya. My magic talisman. Cupped one hand around his neck and pulled him in close for more sweet, leisurely kisses, and started the awkward unbuttoning process with the other.

How could it feel so new, when so many nights together had come before this?

But it did, every touch charged with aching, brilliant joy, and I felt like I was staring into eternity, refracted through blue eyes. A slow journey over familiar terrain - jutting angles of knobby bones, a silky bristle of hair in the center of his chest, the rasp of breath where Illya's mouth mapped my skin. 

I was on fire everywhere he touched me, a long slow climb of pleasure, pulse thundering in the inner crease between hip and thigh where his cock pressed hard against mine. The pressure of chest and stomach, a seamless embrace, and my breath surged unpredictably in the wake of his touch, tracing the lines of old scars.

He arched and pushed into my touch when I closed my fingers around his cock and I felt his need like a whipcrack low in my belly. I wanted him inside me, a need so fierce I was hollow with wanting but we had nothing to ease his entry and besides, Illya had other ideas. Turned so his head was nuzzling my crotch and before I could draw another breath, big hands cradled and aligned my ass, and then his warm mouth was on me, sucking me into luxurious heat. 

So goddamned sweet, this unexpected pleasure, no matter how many times he'd done it for me before. Or I for him. I moaned, eager now for him to fill me this way, and leaned forward to brush my lips up and down his solid erection, gathering up a first taste with my tongue. Felt him tremble as I opened my mouth and swallowed that stiff length.

He jerked with the shock of it, and one thick finger probed along the crease between my buttocks, circled and pierced me ever so gently, and then it was my turn to gasp and gulp for air past the heavy cock filling my mouth. 

We struggled for rhythm, a conduit of mutual pleasure, but the struggle lasted only seconds before Illya threw his head back, let a whine slip past clenched teeth, and shuddered with the urgency that owned us both, filling my mouth with a familiar sharp, hot taste.

After that, it felt like I hovered on the edge forever, captive to Illya's skillful determination and my own stubborn will to spin this precious gift of time, illusion though it might be, out as long as possible. But in the end I succumbed, our combined efforts no competition for entropy, climax roaring through me like a cataract in full sun, glittering and fragmented and almost too beautiful to bear.

* * * * *

The room was dark again when I awoke, but this time Illya's reassuring warmth was tucked up tight against me, the sound of his breathing almost lost against the muted sounds of the street below our windows.

"Hey." I nudged him, felt him instantly go from sound sleep to alert wakefulness and knew he was listening into the darkness, brain ratcheting through a thousand reasons why I'd awakened him.

"What time is it?" he asked a moment later, reassured as much by my ease as by his own senses.

I fumbled for my watch on the bureau, and squinted at the luminous dial. "Just gone 1700 Hours."

He stretched, undulating against me like a cat, and yawned. "You made me miss my lunch."

I slid a hand down one arm, enjoying the silky glide across smooth, sculpted flesh. "We can be back in Vienna in time for a late supper, you know. As long as it's mission accomplished?" I made the last part a question, even though he'd already answered it, hours ago.

"Mmmm." He nibbled on my shoulder. "Wiener Schnitzel. Weihnachtspunsch. Sacher Torte." He sat up. "Just how late is late? I really am very hungry." Bereft of covers, he shivered. "I am also very cold."

We dressed quickly, by the light of a small oil lantern, eager to get back to the warmth and sophisticated comforts of Vienna. Well, Illya was certainly eager, but I felt a bit of reluctance at leaving this sleepy little Hungarian village. It seemed like I'd lived a lifetime in the 48 hours we'd been here. Or maybe just 30 years.

"Napoleon."

I turned from a quick scrutiny around the room, checking that we'd leave nothing incriminating behind - other than a muddy duvet our landlord wouldn't thank us for - and smiled when I saw what Illya was holding up.

The bottle of Egri Bikaver. "Happy Anniversary."

It isn't often that my partner surprises me, but when he does, it's a doozy. "Happy. . . ?" 

Now, it wasn't that I didn't know what date it was, oh no. As if I could ever forget the first time we'd made love. But every year I was the one who had to inveigle, coax, bribe or otherwise trick him into celebrating the occasion, while he rolled his eyes and ridiculed my sentimentality.

Until today, of all days.

"Why?"

He smiled, one of those broad, disarming smiles that comes once in a blue moon; the smile that says he's genuinely happy and at peace with the universe.

I waited while he poured equal measures into two cracked mugs, and handed me one.

"Because it matters to you." 

And for once, I had not been in a position to arrange things. So he had. 

Because _I_ matter to _him._

And whether time granted us those extra thirty years or not, at least now I knew that something of _us_ would endure.

And that meant the present really was a fine place to be.

Even if I had to haul myself down those damned four flights of stairs.


End file.
